Business Foresight in a Niche Market Drives Broker’s Success

By Dianna Kawell
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“I’ve always been a firm believer in specialization, not trying to be everything to everybody.”

For Glenda Grow, a top producer who was named “2007 Tucson Business Woman of the Year” by the Women’s Council of REALTORS®, one of her keys to success has been recognizing the need early on to have a niche.

“I’ve always been a firm believer in specialization,” she said, “not trying to be everything to everybody.”

Grow, CRS, GRI, PMN, SRES, is a broker-associate with Long Realty Company, the largest real estate company in Tucson, AZ, where she focuses on active adult communities.

For Grow, another asset has been her business foresight, which extends from her expanding knowledge of technology to social issues such as green real estate to always evaluating how her business is performing in the evolving marketplace around her. “You have to learn everything about your area,” Grow advised. “Know what’s on the books for later, what’s getting ready to happen, so people see you as a real estate professional who really knows what she’s talking about.”  

Active Adult Niche
According to Grow, her arrival at the active adult niche was a combination of luck and foresight. “I knew with the Baby Boomers coming it was the area to specialize in,” Grow said. These communities, where the primary resident must be 50 years or older by federal mandate, include everything from activity centers for cards and other group activities to top-tier accommodations for fitness, golf, tennis and more.

“I worked with U.S. Home from 1989 to 2000, and they asked me to open a community in Dove Mountain, a master planned community in the northwest sector of Tucson,” Grow said. “I came here before there were roads and set up in a trailer. They rented me a four wheel drive to take people out to the community, and we took lot reservations for about a year and a half before construction started.”

According to Grow, even REALTORS® who are new to the industry should establish a niche for their real estate businesses. “Make yourself stand out and be different than everyone else, even if it’s a tiny thing – be unique,” she advised.

Green Real Estate
According to Grow, she has been lucky in that the current state of the real estate market has not affected her business as negatively as what real estate professionals have experienced in other parts of the country. However, where other REALTORS® may take this stroke of luck as an opportunity to sit back, relax and maintain a status quo approach to their businesses, Grow believes a healthy business lies in constantly examining what’s coming next and how to prepare your skills for the future. This may explain why she is in the top 1 percent of National Association of REALTORS® members and a recipient of Long Realty’s exclusive 1926 Circle of Excellence distinction.

Another area in which Grow’s business forethought put her ahead of the crowd was in green real estate. “We’re seeing more and more the push to go green, and it’s happening very rapidly, much quicker than most of us thought it would,” she said.

Grow was one of the first to pursue the ECO Broker Certification (www.ecobroker.com), which trains real estate professionals to better advise their clients on issues related to energy efficiency in the home. She has also learned a lot through working on listings and lot selections with her brother, Dave Phillips of Sunset Quality Builders, who has been involved with green building for a few years already. Grow plans to spend time over the summer learning even more about this trend and what it will mean for the future of real estate.

“It’s important to remember that there are always ways to make your home more green,” Grow said. “If down the road, we can be involved with building totally green houses, that would be great.”

Business Strategies
While Grow has held real estate licenses in California, Texas and Arizona, she actually got her start in mortgages, which were her forte for nearly 20 years until a medical leave of absence, combined with simply being “burnt out” of the business, caused her to reassess her professional future. Coincidentally at the time one particular real estate sales manager kept pushing her to make the switch to new home sales.

“I had already seen the contracts and understood the paperwork,” Grow said. “So it was a matter of learning to work with people through the process.” It turned out to be the perfect fit.

Relationships that have been built by Grow throughout the years with clients and other REALTORS® have driven her business, which is now about 90 percent referrals-based. “It’s a lot easier to build trust that way,” she said. Grow believes strongly in investing in national networking opportunities through WCR, CRS and GRI, especially participating in national conferences.

“We advertise properties, but honestly that’s not how we get our business,” she said. Grow’s clients live all across the country, and most reach her through referrals from past clients, who were happy with her service, and other REALTORS®. And you must be willing to ask for the business. “You can’t wait around for someone to call you,” she said.

Grow employs a part-time licensed assistant, Inez Ross, who started working with her about four years ago on a few small projects. “She pretty much runs me now,” Grow joked, explaining that Ross coordinates her paperwork, accounting and mailings, as well as helps with listings, including meetings with appraisers, inspectors and other service providers.

Ross has also been instrumental in annual business planning. “Three years ago, she gave me a piece of paper and told me to write down a figure for what I wanted to make for the year and put it in my wallet,” Grow said. “I did, and I exceeded that. So I’ve continued to do that same thing for past three years.”

However, their business systems are not that simplistic. The team inputs their numbers every month into a software program so they always know where they will be at the end of the year. “Some people are happy to just plot along,” Grow said, “but to be successful I believe you have to set goals.”

And where does this forward thinker hope to be five years from now? “I don’t think I’d be ready to quit yet,” she said, “but if I work, I want to always enjoy it and be successful at what I do.”
 
Glenda Grow can be reached at 520-665-3120 or glenda@growtucson.com.
Her Web site is www.growtucson.com.

Posted June 2008